Upon returning to Canada, I went first to visit my oldest friend Greg in Vancouver. He picked me up from the airport, and - pretty high on lack of sleep - we bummed around Vancouver for a bit until I finally collapsed on the sofa. The next morning we went to International House of Pancakes, which was very international: every waitress was from a different cultural background. I was pretty happy about that, it was a very homey feeling. It was also the first big reminder to me of how huge portions are in this country, and how we are really no better than Japan for offering few if any vegetarian options (I mean, sure, I like meat as much as the next guy, but when I order an omelette I think "eggs" first, not "bacon" or "ham" or "roast beef").

I drank about two carafes of coffee, which set me up to survive the rest of the day. I was still jittery when Jen and Dad arrived from Kamloops and met us at Boston Pizza for dinner. Dad, Jen and I then went to Dad and Zdenka's retreat on Protection Island in Nanaimo Harbour.

Nanaimo is one of the major cities on B.C.'s Vancouver Island, for our international readers (are there any anymore?). It's got a fantastic natural harbour facing into the Strait of Georgia. The Strait is already a somewhat covered part of sea, although wide enough to get quite rough. Then, on the way into Nanaimo, Gabriola Island (a large gulf island) protects the harbour quite a lot. Closer in, two small islands - Protection and Newcastle - block the waves even further, making Nanaimo Harbour as still as any lake I've seen. Nevertheless, it's deep enough for massive tankes and ferries. Nifty. Here's a map, for those curious. The smallest island close to Nanaimo is Protection.

Anyway, Protection Island is a very unique little place. It's so close to Nanaimo that it benefits from city electricity, water, and even sewage. It has full telephone and high speed internet. One can truly set up a comfortable, normal home there. On the other hand, it's totally separated from the mainland, and so small that even with only four hundred people living on it, it's nearly full up. It's a very quirky place, possibly expected for a suburb on an island. With the island only about 1km by 500m, almost no one there uses normal vehicles; a special bylaw allows them to insure golf carts for regular use on the island's roads. The global speed limit is 20km/h, making it the only place I've been where it's easy to violate the speed limit on a bicycle. Heck, Ai - one of my 2nd year students from Nichu - could violate the speed limit on foot. Way to go, Ai!

There is only one commercial establishment on the island, and I use the term "on" loosely. The Dinghy Dock is a free-floating pub and the main entry port for Protection Island. Decent food, apparently; I've only eaten there once, and it was pretty tasty. Aside from that, the island has very little but houses. One must boat all the way into Nanaimo just to do a basic grocery run. Building and furnishing a house requires frequent rather costly trips by barge to and from the main harbour. I suspect this major inconvenience is a large contributing factor to keeping the island quirky and somewhat idyllic. Of course, there are plenty of yuppie summer homers, like Dad and Zdenka (heh), but there are also plenty of old hippies, like Dad and Zdenka (hehe). Most of the folks that live there full-time fall into the latter category, as it takes a pretty wacky type of person to want to boat across the ocean during a Canadian winter (even a Vancouver Island winter) just to buy a few litres of milk.

I could go on and on about the island's quirks. Small town atmosphere, everyone knows everyone, nearly every household has a representative that attends the town meetings, the roads aren't paved allegedly to keep the heat down in summer, the tide is a vital part of everyone's daily schedule, yadda yadda yadda. It's a neat place, and I'm sure I'll write more about it when I've been there a little more. My closing comment should just be my favourite aspect: everything on the island is piratically themed. I don't have much to say about that besides that it's awesome.

For our own part, Jen and I took our week there as a real honest-to-goodness Summer Vacation. Given that we had just been married in Japan, it was kinda like our Canadian honeymoon. We stayed in the Studio, an awesome little outbuilding lacking only in the toilet and curtain departments. We walked on the beach, poked crabs, sat in the sun, got tanned, ate Dad's delicious cooking, and visited Dad, Zdenka, Robin, Jon, and my Uncle Wayne and cousin Nathalie. It was wicked. We of course went sailing, and sort-of swimming (Jen went, but I never got a good chance myself. Curse my procrastination), we collected oysters to eat, and we took a lot of photos. Many of those will go up on the blog.

It was great to spend time in a totally unfamiliar - but still Canadian - place. It helped us, especially me, adjust to Canadian culture without being thrust right back into places that aren't familiar anymore but feel like they should be. Of course, I did a bit of Japanese cooking for everyone (nothing too amazing) and even got a chance to speak Japanese to a young lady on a Working Holiday visa in Nanaimo (yep, same as Jen). She is from Hiroshima, and was totally flabbergasted to speak someone with pretty speedy Japanese and a Tohoku accent. I can already tell this is going to be a fun skill.

All good things come to an end, though. Fortunately for us, leaving the island paradise wasn't the end of our good times. We went off to Kamloops next: a lot less of an ideal location, but we still had fun. I'll post about that later, for now I'd better make sure dinner is not on fire.